Kung Fu Math – Jeff Burger (Conflict Manager, DECEMBER, 2015)

Talking with Sifu Lam about the importance of skill and strength and skill vs strength and how to prioritize my training and he gave me this.
I call it “Lam’s Equation”10 skills = 1 strength
10 strengths = 1 will

I understood the 10 skills = 1 strength piece. You simply need a skill advantage to beat a larger stronger opponent. If you don’t think size and strength are factors then you are living a dangerous misconception.

I was confused on will, I took it as meaning heart.
A fighter who has heart just keeps going, tired, hurt, losing … he presses on, but that’s not what he meant by will.
He said it meant having a real reason to fight.

I was teaching a women’s self defense seminar when one woman walked away from the practice and just sat down.

I asked her if she was OK, she said ” I’m fine, I just don’t know why I’m here. I’m never going to be able to beat a man, they’re just stronger.”
I said “What if he is trying to rape of kill you?”
She replied “Read the papers, women get raped and killed everyday.”
The group had heard this and I could feel the moral drop.
I knew this woman personally and knew she had two daughters ( 8 & 10 ) so i asked her “What would you do if someone was trying to rape and kill one of your kids?”
She pretty much snapped, her posture went from defeated and hopeless to something unstoppable and crazy, scary and said “I’d ****ing kill them.”

OK, so what happened to change things? Why is it what she couldn’t possibly do for herself was something unquestionable for her kids? Not to sound cheesy but the answer is unconditional love for her kids, she had a real reason to fight.

So I told her “Think about what would happen to your kids if someone killed you. How would your death effect them ? Who would raise them ? You need to tell yourself I’m going to be there for my kids, I’m going to watch them grow up and be there for birthday parties, Christmas present, graduations, get married and I’m going to hold my grand kids and nobody is going to take that away from me.”

I took a few things away from that experience.

1. Don’t fight unless you have a real reason, if only for the fact that you wont fight your best ( not to mention legalities ).

2. Why couldn’t she tap into that for herself ? My thought is she ( we ) don’t love ourselves unconditionally.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe because we know all our short comings, even the stuff we’d probably never tell anyone, so maybe we feel unworthy of it. As for your children, well they can have all kinds of faults and we still love them unconditionally.
3. How could she ( we ) tap into that strength? You tell yourself this person has no right to take you away from your family.